An exploration of the impact of social media on higher education and the

1. Institutional Future
of Social Media
Dr Ian Boston
University of Cambridge

2. Social Media ?

3. Some rights reserved by Maschinenraum

4. Institutional Context
• We are people not
buildings
• Too late?
• Club Penguin,
Moshi Monsters,
GenY

5. Outsource
• “Does Kmart ask
MySpace to tell it
what its
customers
buying patterns
are?”
• “Is LinkedIn the
way to build
great researcher
teams?”

6. Harvard Catalyst
http://catalyst.harvard.edu/home.html

7. Institutional Memory

8. Analysis and Actions

9. Realistic Scale

10. Data Gathering
• Official Sources,
SIS, HR, Finance
• Collaboration
trails
• Starving for raw
data

11. Outsource by default
• Nature abhors
a vacuum
• Order or
Desire

12. Its Our Domain
• Surprisingly deep
• Borrow, beg, buy
• Head start

13. The task ahead
• Encourage
Connections
• Data gathering
• Academic Apps

14. Encourage Connections
Profiles Collaboration
Groups
Colleagues
Publications Sharing

15. Data Gathering
Profiles Collaboration
Groups
Activity Data
Colleagues
Publications Sharing

16. Sakai 3 App
Profiles
Publications
Sakai 3 App
Sakai 3 App
Groups
Sakai 3 App
Colleagues
Sakai 3 App
Sakai 3 App
Sharing
Collaboration Sakai 3 App
Sakai Apps Framework
Sakai 3 App
Sakai 3 App
Google Gadget
Academic Apps
Google Gadget
Google Gadget
Gadget
Activity Data
Container
Google Gadget

17. Improving Experience
User Event
Activity Records
Enhanced Offline
Data Analysis

18. Important Maxims
• Unbiased Observations.
• Original data.
• Analysis without expectations
• Uncertainty.

19. Example: Identifying
Interests
User authors Content
content Created Event
User sees related Content created event, is picked
content, which authors up by a processor, analyses and
are connected, which are categorises the content based on
not, offered to expand word used, generating links to
network of collaborators. similar content.

20. Example: Identifying
Behaviour
Usage And Normal Expectation
Student A
Activity
throughout
the system
Student has been identified as
having erratic engagement with
peers and the course. Mentors,
alerted that there may be an
underlying cause.

21. 5 years hence
• TL&R tools built to support the needs
of the members of all institutions.
• Increasing availability of data sets
within institutions to further the
understanding of TL&R.
• Less resource spent on the mundane,
more on the unique.
Thank you - Questions ?